So I guess I sort of know what to expect from this since I contributed to your thread about the love interests. I remember you saying it’s based off of your own experience, so good on you for sharing and turning it in to a story!
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First point is with your comment about the 18+, I’m guessing you mean that because the characters are 18+ and not the content being 18+? Either way though, you can’t advertise your story as that because episode is an app for 13+ and as such, all stories must be appropriate for 13 year olds. But from what I read in 1-3, I don’t think it is explicit or anything, so I wouldn’t worry about warning everyone that it’s more for an 18+ audience.
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I think you must have spot positioned your speech bubble, because it’s pointing at Lauren, when Evan is talking. Don’t forget to @speechbubble reset.
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Ohh, I feel like I should have known that was a dream with the use of filter, but you actually got me by surprise there. Very well done.
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I like the conversations with Dad don’t feel like they’re just there for filler scenes. It feels like the mean something, and I get the feeling this will end with Dad’s death perhaps.
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Outside the bookstore, Lauren has a moment where she’s walking on the spot before she actually moves
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Your episodes are relatively short, both length wise and content wise. If you think about it episode 4 was: a dream > a talk with dad > a phone call And that was it. I noticed you released a major chunk of chapters at once, so having short episodes would actually help people binge read them quicker. But if you think about it, the majority of readers only have 2 or 3 passes built up and have to wait hours for that to reload, so you don’t want them to feel like they got ripped off.
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The quality of choices in episode 5 was good. It felt like we got an opportunity to get to know the characters. I would have loved to have seen a couple of more questions before that cliff hanger though. Which would have also helped a bit with your length issue.
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Chapter 6: Do I Wanna Know? … Arctic Monkey’s reference?
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It doesn’t look like Lauren is sitting on the bar stool quite right. But I think if you move her on the seat, you’d have to move Evan over too.
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I think Lauren spazzing out like that is a result of drinking, right? If so, perhaps making her a bit more overly drunk before she blurts out her feelings. I know not everyone who drinks gets crazy drunk, but for episode, you sort of need to do write your characters that way so all readers can see it. Because I feel like Lauren is so smart and she’s got her life together, just by the way she talks. So maybe a solution could be something as simple as you have it zoomed out while Evan and Ari are talking and just put Lauren sip_cup_neutral_loop, so that way readers can see that she’s had like 20 “sips” by the time she lashes out.
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This isn’t really something that’s your fault, but it’s something you should be wary of… In Limelight, when a character finishes an animation, sometimes the position they’re left in when the next character starts talking, doesn’t suit the what’s going on in the scene. An example of this would be the armsraised talking animations. I always try to overcoming this by either
a) Having &CHARACTER is animation before the next character starts to talk, so that I can make them shiftweight or drink or being awkward or listen nod loop or something.
b) Zooming from character to character based on who’s talking, so you don’t have to see that the other characters look frozen in a weird pose.
I’ve scene you do the latter a couple of times, but it’s just with limelight sometimes the characters look so… “frozen”. I really can’t think if a better way to describe it, so I hope you know what I mean.
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Is Lauren supposed to have her back to Ari when she’s crying about Evan.
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What you did there at the end of episode 6, with that hint of an eyebrow raise from Ari was such a good moment of foreshadowing. Simple, but effective.
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The foreshadowing was a trick!
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This is the first time I’m actually seeing a Jewish character in Episode.
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Your scene outside the bar is a good example of what I was talking about before. Ari’s standing there frozen in some cheeky grin pose, while Lauren’s sighing and obviously embarrassed to admit who her celeb crush is. And again, after he does his whole mindblown animation, she’s doing a flirty talking animation and he’s just stuck there with his hands half risen and his face looking all judgy.
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I find the relationship between Lauren and her father so unbelievable and yet really nice at the same time. Unbelievable because happy child-parent relationships are never represented in Episode! Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to do that? But yeah, it’s nice to see a grown up MC who talks to her father. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve definitely started telling my parents more about my life and what’s going on so I’d say that’s pretty accurate… Although I’d still never talk to my Dad about BOYS!!! LOL!
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Your fade to white for the camera flash was perfect!
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There’s a couple of times I’ve seen your character “pop in”. Most of the time it’s after you have the episode title/chapter name, so it’s fine. But I just noticed it when Lauren goes into another dream, her and Evan pop in after the background and not with the background. Making sure you use ‘&’ instead of ‘@’ when doing their placements.
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The same thing happens when Lauren’s college roomies show up. You need to place them before you pan to the zone they’re standing in, otherwise they’ll just randomly appear.
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I’ve just noticed sometimes you do the chapter name on a black background and other times you do it on the first scene’s background. I’d suggest doing one or the other, so you have that consistency.
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Oooh I love the Foo Fighters song. Although, I should probably warn you, you can only use 4 lines of a real song per episode, so I think you went a bit over. Side note: I actually remember reading an annotation of these song lyrics a while ago, and both characters were wrong! Haha, but I guess everything’s up to interpretation with these kinds of things, so maybe they’re right in their own ways.
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Ok, something I would recommend for the scene where they all eat Evan’s creation is to code it like this
&LAUREN is animation
@pause for 0.4
&EVAN is animation
@pause for 0.7
&AIR is animation
This will get them to eat at the same time but without looking like they’re robots being controlled to eat at the exact same time. You may want to test out the timings though, I was just guessing there.
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Air leaving is like so obvi he wants to try and set them up! This story is like starting to remind me of this guy I had a thing with in high school, and Ari is like all my friends wrapped into one who tried to push us to be together.
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In the car, I’d suggest spot directing the speechbubbles so they’re not covering Lauren and Evan’s faces.
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I thought Lauren’s sister writing an essay about her was hilarious. Hehehe.
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I liked your montage, it was a great way to show a time lapse. But I’d make sure they change clothes every time it’s a different day.
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Aww no, Lauren’s dad!!
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I think Lauren is scaled a little bit too big when she’s trying to get to sleep on the couch.
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12 was a really short episode and if you’ve read anything I’ve written about author notes, I’d guess you’d probably see this comment coming, but noooooo! Why did you make Lauren break the fourth wall like that??? I feel like that doesn’t work for the type of story you have. Like even if you had done that in the narration bubble, I would still be like nooooooooooo! Because you haven’t done it in any other episodes and all of a sudden here? If you want to start doing something, maybe make some outro splashes to tell people to follow you? But put them in each episode so you have like a uniform.
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I was so busy complaining about the sudden broken fourth wall, that I forgot to ask why was Evan already standing up in his room? Was he struggling to sleep as well?
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This confessional scene where Evan lets her in - physically and emotionally - is the best you’ve done so far. I can see you’ve got a strong attachment here. I’ve been wondering how close to your real life have you actually made this episode. Is this something that actually happened? Evan letting you in or is this a what if he did actually let me in?
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A nice detail you’ve done is make Evan’s sheets the same color as his bed.
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Hmmm, interesting place to leave it ending… It’s sort of a cliff hanger but if you changed a few lines, it could also be a sad ending.
Ok so my overall thoughts is basically one big thought and then two sub-thoughts, that if you fixed the sub-thoughts, it would also fix the main thought. So bare with me, this is about to get confusing…
In terms of everything else, spelling and grammar was flawless. The plot was good - I liked that this all linked to Lauren’s dad’s illness. You didn’t add that in there for the sake of it, but it actually contributed to the story line. My only issue with the plot was not seeing Lauren’s crush on Evan develop and it suddenly just being there. I like having a guy friend who is just a friend. I even liked that there were so many cliche opportunities for Evan and Lauren to get together but you managed to draw it out 10+ chapters and didn’t cave to those cliche temptations. Really good work!